The Caversham Press, founded in 1985 by Malcolm Christian in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal, has made an important contribution to the development of printmaking in South Africa and has a memorable history. It is this contribution and history, as much as excellence in printmaking, that 'People, Prints and Process – 25 Years at Caversham' celebrates. The exhibition runs at the Standard Gallery, Johannesburg, from 14 October to 4 December 2010.

Featuring over 100 works by more than 70 artists, 'People, Prints and Process – 25 Years at Caversham' presents an opportunity to reflect on the achievements of what was the first comprehensive independent artists' press in southern Africa. It tells a remarkable story of faith in creative people and the processes of human interaction and empowerment, generated through collaborative work underpinned by exacting design and printing processes (etching, lithography, screenprint, and linocut).

The Caversham Press found a home near Lidgetton, KwaZulu-Natal, when master printer, Malcolm Christian, bought a former Wesleyan Methodist chapel surrounded by a graveyard. What was to become a famous art centre happened by chance. Christian, who had taught at many tertiary education institutions, was teaching at Wits when, on his way to Durban, he "wandered down a winding dirt road," as he recalls, and came across the derelict old chapel. His vision was to transform the 1878 church into a studio, with the aim of providing South African artists with access to a professional, collaborative set-up for the production of limited edition prints. Of particular importance to Christian was the idea of nurturing emergent artists from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Caversham is located within an idyllic landscape of rural tranquillity and the studio retains the peaceful aura of its original spiritual structure. The gravestones are now incorporated into the garden and many newer buildings contribute to Caversham's community identity and provide accommodation for residencies and visiting artists. There are no distractions to inhibit dedication to the processes of thinking in visual form and producing handmade, limited edition artists' prints.

Christian believes that everybody is creative. "I think the education systems," he says, "have sucked the creativity from us. And I don't mean the ability to draw. Creativity is far more fundamental than that: it's our innate ability to embrace change." What he seeks at Caversham is to unlock that creativity. "Ultimately my meaning rests in you. I have to find effective ways to build significance within you – and one of those ways is to facilitate your pursuit of excellence. I think that's the whole purpose of Caversham."

Robert Hodgins, who passed way this year, was the first artist to spend time at Caversham. Since then a host of artists have benefited from the Christian touch and approach, as well as the peaceful surroundings. These include Sthembiso Sibisi, William Kentridge, Peter Schütz, Wonderboy Nxumalo, Peter Clarke, Bonnie Ntsalintshali, Deborah Bell, Garth Erasmus, Karel Nel, Peter Clarke, Albert Adams, Derick Nxumalo, Magkabo Helen Sebidi, Andries Botha, Malcolm Payne, Zwelethu Mthethwa and Gabisile Nkosi. All of these artists feature on 'People, Prints and Process – 25 Years at Caversham'.

Of the above artists, some, such as Kentridge, Hodgins and Bell, formed long-term relationships with Caversham, working on a number of important collaborative projects over the years. These have come to assume pride of place in the history of South African printmaking. Their first was Hogarth in Johannesburg, completed in the late 1980s, and in 1997 they showed on an exhibition at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Alfred Jarry's landmark play, Ubu Roi (1895).

Caversham prints occupy an important place in South Africa's art, culture, political evolution and history of South African prints. Today the Press is part of a cluster of related art and educational initiatives, including the Caversham Centre for Artists and Writers and the Caversham Education Institute. The journey undertaken by Christian was guided by his belief in human creativity, and summed up in the word Masabelaneni (let us share). Christian has shared his technical expertise and inventiveness with the artists who visited Caversham for 25 years.

"Caversham," says Malcolm, "is about people and their need to share stories and insights, affirming our common bonds of humanity from frailty to strength, from baseness to transcendence. Over 25 years, these artists have been drawn from the renowned to the emergent, from those who have completed life's journey to those just beginning... They reflect the essence of collaboration, the duality within each of us to be inspired and to be a source of inspiration."

In 1985 most of the visiting artists were formally trained white artists; now they are largely black artists and students from KwaZulu-Natal who experience the joy of learning new visual communication skills from a dedicated teacher in the tranquil studios of rural Caversham.

The Standard Bank exhibition features works from the major portfolios printed by the Caversham Press, including the 'Decade of Young Artists. Ten Years of Standard Bank Young Artist Awards' (1991) and the ground-breaking 'Spirit of Our Stories' (1994), which brought the narratives of black artists to prominence in South Africa's year of dramatic political change. The exhibition presents a comprehensive history of personal visual concepts and observations mediated by experiencing life in pre-and post-apartheid South Africa. The images, rendered by marking, colouring and handling etching plates, lino blocks, screens and lithographic stones are processed using traditional printing presses and contemporary digital techniques.

Caversham is a story of collaboration in a country characterised historically by division, fragmentation, hostility and injustice. After two and a half decades, Caversham's contribution to the story of South African printmaking reveals a complex dialogue of many voices and the evidence of many visions embedded in a rich diversity of imagery.

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Standard Bank Gallery
Corner Simmonds and Frederick Street, Johannesburg
Tel: 011 631-4467 Gallery hours: Mon-Fri, 08:00-16:30; Saturday, 09:00-13:00
The gallery is closed on Sundays and public holidays.
Admission free

'A Vigil of Departure', a retrospective of Louis Maqhubela, runs at the Standard Bank Gallery from 3 August to 18 September 2010. The thrust behind the exhibition and catalogue is to assess Louis Maqhubela's (1939- ) place in, and contribution to, the history of South African art. The intention is to remind the public of a great artist, to return Maqhubela from obscurity and to re-inscribe him into the history of art of this country.

Maqhubela's name is strongly associated with the Polly Street Art Centre, where he studied from 1957-59. At a time of increasing apartheid restrictions, Polly Street, the first large-scale urban art centre in South Africa, emerged as a place where black artists could learn their craft.

A trip to Europe early in his career, and encounters with great European artists and abstract painting, offered him a means decisively to break out of the conventions and stylistic mannerisms of a genre that had been labelled "Township Art".

Maqhubela's new direction meant the end of figurative expressionism and the beginning of a personal engagement with modernist abstraction. His work now became less about recording views of his environment and more about using line, form, shape and colour as expressive means in and of themselves.

After settling in London with his family in 1976, Maqhubela's work became increasingly abstract, while trips to South Africa since 1994 have stimulated renewed interest in the colours, rituals and places of the country of his birth.

Maqhubela's spiritual journey and search for a higher plane through form and colour may explain why he has no immediate successors in the stylistic sense: his art is too personal, too enigmatic for followers to emulate.

In the catalogue to Maqhubela's exhibition, Marilyn Martin, the show's curator writes, "In spite of trials and challenges he faced during his life, Maqhubela's art is characterised by a profound humanism, inner joy and affirmation of life; [his works] spring from a deep spiritual and metaphysical well."

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Standard Bank Gallery
Corner Simmonds and Frederick Street, Johannesburg
Tel: 011 631-4467 Gallery hours: Mon-Fri, 08:00-16:30; Saturday, 09:00-13:00
The gallery is closed on Sundays and public holidays.
Admission free

‘Halakasha!’, a flagship exhibition celebrating the historic first FIFA World Cup™ in Africa, showcases a range of artworks dealing with the global phenomenon of soccer and the passion it evokes in Africa in particular. The exhibition’s title, ‘Halakasha!’ is drawn from the traditional South African celebratory cry on a goal being scored.

Designed to showcase the full spectrum of cultural manifestations of the love of soccer, the exhibition includes makarapas, vuvuzelas and commercially produced soccer merchandise. Other highlights include popular street art in the form of painted barber signs by Ghanaian and Congolese artists; a selection of posters from the official FIFA poster collection of commissioned prints by world renowned artists (© FIFA 2010, brands united, Berlin (licensee) / David Krut Publishing, JHB (distributor); and images from Drum magazine relating to football during the apartheid years.

Adding to the richness of the exhibition are documents and handmade badges by political prisoners on Robben Island, where soccer was played. Costumes, drums and masks from Angola, Cameroon and Ghana that are echoed in some of the images on show are also included, as well as photographic essays, such as a feature by Nigerian filmmaker and photographer, Andrew Dosunmu. His work depicting fans in a range of guises, such as religious prophets, drummers and musicians, magicians, cross dressers, chiefs and military personnel, is featured. Images depicting the rivalries between supporters of local teams Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates – both of which are sponsored by Standard Bank − are captured by the Kenyan photojournalist Antony Kaminju.

Another element of the exhibition relates to isangoma and inyanga, diviners and healers who use traditional medicine and ritual practices to ensure a winning performance from their favoured team. The exhibition includes examples of items associated with divination practices.

The exhibition, curated by Fiona Rankin-Smith of the Wits Art Museum, also includes a series of documentaries and films on the theme of football. These will run throughout the show, which is accompanied by an extensive catalogue.

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Standard Bank Gallery
Corner Simmonds and Frederick Street, Johannesburg
Tel: 011 631-4467 Gallery hours: Mon-Fri, 08:00-16:30; Saturday, 09:00-13:00
The gallery is closed on Sundays and public holidays.
Admission free

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Issued by The Heritage Agency on behalf of Standard Bank Gallery
For further information please contact:

Jo-Anne Duggan
The Heritage Agency
Tel: 083 285 3600
Email: jo-anne@heritageagency.co.za

In 2009 the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art was bestowed on Nicholas Hlobo. Since 1981, the award has been made annually to those who have demonstrated exceptional ability in their field, and Hlobo was the 28th visual artist to be acclaimed through the award. On winning the award, he said, ‘I am truly honoured to have been chosen and hope to give audiences something new and innovative’.

A key element of the award is that winning artists are granted a national touring exhibition, with legs in all the major centres in South Africa. Hlobo’s show, ‘Umtshotsho’, a sculptural installation, began its year-long tour at the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown in July 2009. His exhibition in Johannesburg at the Standard Bank Gallery is supplemented by new works by the artist which have not yet been exhibited. This is the penultimate leg of the tour before the show ends its run in Cape Town in August 2010.

Drawing on his Xhosa culture and heritage, and his life as a black person in post-apartheid South Africa, Hlobo is concerned with gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, and, according to him, ‘anything that people find embarrassing in society’. He is particularly concerned with prejudice against homosexuality in black society, as well as sex education, AIDS and blurring the division between the masculine and feminine. Renowned for his sculptures made of found objects and disparate materials, such as the inner tubes of car tyres, ribbon, leather and wire, Hlobo also makes drawings and is a performance artist of note. His works are usually entitled in his native tongue, Xhosa, and he is interested in the language, with its proverbs and idioms. His work is symbolic: rubber tubes refer to condoms and some of his forms allude to phalluses, sperm, orifices and umbilical cords.

While Hlobo’s previous shows have explored ideas surrounding birth and sex, the theme in ‘Umtshotsho’ is the rituals that accompany the transition from youth to adulthood. As Hlobo explains, the term umtshotsho refers to a traditional party for young people. ‘The focus is on that time when children are beginning to think and act like adults; the desire to explore life, dating, going out at night and all the consequences of wanting to do things older people do. Umtshotsho rarely takes place in its old form anymore and young people have found alternatives, such as going to bars and clubs. The works are not trying to tell a story about an old way of partying for teenagers but look at the new conventions and draw similarities between different times.’

‘Umtshotsho’ is accompanied by Hlobo’s first monograph, which traces his life and work from 2005 to 2009.

Running concurrently in the downstairs gallery is ‘City and Suburban’ by Johannesburg-based Karin Preller. Her images are carefully extracted from personal pictorial archives, in this instance, stills from home movies filmed in the 1960s. Says Preller, ‘The paintings chronicle ordinary lived moments of individuals, paused and rewound; interrupted narratives and lost stories.’

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Standard Bank Gallery
Corner Simmonds and Frederick Street, Johannesburg
Tel: 011 631-4467 Gallery hours: Mon-Fri, 08:00-16:30; Saturday, 09:00-13:00
The gallery is closed on Sundays and public holidays.
Admission free

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Issued by The Heritage Agency on behalf of Standard Bank Gallery
For further information please contact:

Jo-Anne Duggan
The Heritage Agency
Tel: 083 285 3600
Email: jo-anne@heritageagency.co.za

Cecil Skotnes said that Ngatane “put his thumbprint on the history of South African art”. In the course of his short-lived but illustrious career, Ngatane made a marked impression on the art of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, creating artworks that captured the essence of township living and conveyed emotion and depth.

Ngatane studied under Skotnes at the Polly Street Art Centre from 1952-1954, during which time he developed his unique method and experimented with different media, from gouache and watercolour to oil paint. Although many artists of that time used the township as their subject matter, what set Ngatane apart was his approach – he used abstract, geometric shapes and a wide spectrum of colour to create compositions that are both aesthetically appealing and emotive.

Through his art Ngatane portrayed life in Soweto: emotions spanning from despair to hope, the soul of the township, its beggars, bicycles and barbershops, and the wind, snow and sun. While his work serves as a narrative of the hardship of living in Soweto, which was overcrowded and dirty, Ngatane was also concerned with depicting the music, sport and social life of the township. Fah Fee (1969) depicts the popular Chinese numbers game that was a common feature of everyday life in Soweto.

The music of the townships is a recurring theme in the work of Ngatane, who was also an accomplished pennywhistler and saxophonist. The pennywhistlers of the 1960s feature often, most likely due to the influence of Ngatane’s childhood friend, Rankusi Makua, who was a talented pennywhistler. The pennywhistle was an affordable instrument, as were soapbox guitars, both of which can be seen in Musicians (undated) and The Penny Whistlers (c.1968).

While other artists of his time tended to create generalised representations of township scenes, many of Ngatane’s paintings focus on specific areas or landmarks in the townships, such as Old Sophiatown (1963) and Pimville Township (1969). Even though many of these scenes show the unpleasant, congested and sometimes unsanitary conditions of the township (including, in some cases, the “bucket” system of sewerage), Ngatane treated these images with flamboyant colour, constantly parodying the callousness and degradation of the apartheid system.

The exhibition also features some of Ngatane’s more unusual works, such as Nude Woman (1969), the subject matter of which is a rare reminder that nudes are not just a “white” artistic tradition.

The style of Ngatane’s work ranges from documentary realism to abstract painting, but is always distinctively his own and focuses on the gritty reality of township life. Ngatane died of tuberculosis in 1971 at almost 33 years of age, but his work remains important to an understanding of South African art and township life under apartheid.

A hardcover book on Ngatane, entitled A Setting Apart, edited by Rory Bester, will be launched at the opening of the exhibition, which is curated by Natalie Knight.

Running concurrently in the downstairs gallery is ‘Harmony’, an exhibition of Natasha Christopher’s artworks focusing on Welkom, where she spent her formative years.

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